Guan, Yi, Hohn, Sönke and Merico, Agostino ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8095-8056 (2015) Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean. PLOS ONE, 10 (6). e0128831. DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128831.

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Abstract

Coral reefs are found within a limited range of environmental conditions or tolerance limits. Estimating these limits is a critical prerequisite for understanding the impacts of climate change on the biogeography of coral reefs. Here we used the diagnostic model ReefHab to determine the current environmental tolerance limits for coral reefs and the global distribution of potential coral reef habitats as a function of six factors: temperature, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, aragonite saturation state, and light. To determine these tolerance limits, we extracted maximum and minimum values of all environmental variables in corresponding locations where coral reefs are present. We found that the global, annually averaged tolerance limits for coral reefs are 21.7—29.6 °C for temperature, 28.7—40.4 psu for salinity, 4.51 μmol L-1 for nitrate, 0.63 μmol L-1 for phosphate, and 2.82 for aragonite saturation state. The averaged minimum light intensity in coral reefs is 450 μmol photons m-2 s-1. The global area of potential reef habitats calculated by the model is 330.5 × 103 km2. Compared with previous studies, the tolerance limits for temperature, salinity, and nutrients have not changed much, whereas the minimum value of aragonite saturation in coral reef waters has decreased from 3.28 to 2.82. The potential reef habitat area calculated with ReefHab is about 121×103 km2 larger than the area estimated from the charted reefs, suggesting that the growth potential of coral reefs is higher than currently observed.

Document Type:	Article
Programme Area:	UNSPECIFIED
Research affiliation:	Integrated Modelling > Systems Ecology
Refereed:	Yes
Open Access Journal?:	Yes
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128831
ISSN:	1932-6203
Date Deposited:	25 Jul 2019 13:51
Last Modified:	01 Oct 2020 12:59
URI:	http://cris.leibniz-zmt.de/id/eprint/2413

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